Philadelphia-based private equity firm Boathouse Capital has made a $15 million investment into Sacramento educational services company Stravos Education, which could help the company with pending acquisitions.
Stravos is a holding company that acquires and supports tutoring services, placement services and academic preparation companies focused on tutoring and similar services.
“We are looking at opportunities to close the learning gap,” Stravos CEO Billy Downing told the Business Journal.
The latest funding comes on top of $6.5 million Stravos raised from mostly West Coast angel investment funds in December, Downing said.
In 1999, Downing launched Sacramento-based ESM Group, a test prep and tutoring company. That company is now ESM Group International Inc., based in Sacramento and with offices in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and London. It is one of the education companies under the holding company of Stravos Education. Other current Stravos companies include Incline Village, Nevada-based Launch Precollege Labs and Atlanta-based Applerouth Tutoring Services LLC.
Downing launched ESM Group in 1999 to offer college admissions counseling for high school students, and tutoring and test preparation for K-12 students. In 2015, ESM bought San Francisco-based test preparation company Tutorpedia, eventually merging it into ESM.
Stravos companies currently have 450 employees and contractors, and it works with more than 4,000 students annually, Downing said.
"Billy and his team have established themselves as a priceless value-add for thousands of students globally, and we are thrilled to leverage our experience in the education sector to support the continued growth of the company," said Bill Dyer, managing partner at Boathouse Capital, in a news release. “We look forward to exploring additional mergers and acquisitions opportunities for Stravos, in addition to augmenting the services that it provides to its many students."
Boathouse Capital makes growth investments into later-stage companies, according to its website. Its portfolio company, Minneapolis-based Hoonuit, was acquired in 2020 by Folsom-based education software company PowerSchool Holdings Inc. (NYSE: PWSC).
